Pawlenty, who is from South St. Paul, morphs into a good ol' boy when it suits him. Can you say politically expedient? Get an 'earwaggin of Pawlenty's South St. Paul drawl in this March campaign speech:

20 May 2011

By all accounts, Michigan is a wonderful place to visit. But given the horrific state of Michigan's economy, and given that Michigan's dire unemployment levels are born from regressive public policy (NAFTA, union busting, jobs outsourcing), should the State of Michigan be doling out their travel promotion budget to Fox News?

Here's one indignant email sent to Travel Michigan.

Dear Travel Michigan:

This morning I happened by a TV in a public space tuned to “Fox & Friends”.

I was shocked and disappointed to learn that Travel Michigan advertises on the Fox "News" cable channel.

My family of four visits Michigan's UP every August. We also travel to Michigan for downhill skiing. Because your organization has decided to run travel ads on such a blatantly manipulative and divisive media mouthpiece for fringe politics, we are reconsidering our Michigan travel plans.

I lied. My family does not take August vacations to Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP). We did however take one ski trip to Michigan. It was a disaster -- temperatures below zero and wind-chill so severe they closed all but one ski lift. We took two runs, then retreated to our over-priced cabin.

Here's a response to my email from Travel Michigan:

Bob,

Thanks for your email. As a non-partisan tourism promotion agency, we advertise on all of the morning cable news shows - CNN, MSNBC, Fox. Frankly, we welcome visitors of all political persuasions and those not involved in or interested in politics as well. Thanks again for your input.

I think you will agree that Fox does not meet even the most minimal bar of journalistic standards vis-a-vis factual integrity or delineation between editorial content and news events.

As such, your statement of implied equivalency of these media outlets doesn't hold water. If you were to say that Travel Michigan advertizes on two cable news networks (CNN & MSNBC) and one infomercial (Fox), perhaps that would more intellectually honest.

04 May 2011

Since taking my first gig out of grad school as an environmental engineer, the career landscape has changed -- for the worse.

To wit, few people talk of careers any more for fear of being snickered at by some cynical, beaten-down, itinerant knowledge worker.

Looking back, I realize I have wasted my entire professional life warming increasingly less comfortable chairs in increasingly smaller spaces for proportionally less compensation.

Today I ask you to mourn the hard-working middle class with me. I know, this ain't Rwanda. In comparison, our problems are small and surmountable

Yet you and I have observed 20-plus years of squeezing the middle class in the US into near extinction. I can't say "the squeeze" has been premeditated because I won't let myself degrade into a delusional conspiracy-theorist. More likely, the cause has been benign neglect. Benign neglect via anti-people government policy. NAFTA for example, and the systematic emasculation of regulatory institutions like the USEPA, have added nothing to the job pool.

Corporatist, conservative, anti-union & anti-people policies have eroded society's topsoil - the middle class. We should reverse this assault. What will we leave for our children and our grandchildren?

How do we reverse this trend so your kids and mine might be ever-so-incrementally more hopeful about the future?